A polychromed wood figure of a Water-Moon Guanyin


Ming dynastyOf joined block construction, the figure seated with his left arm resting on his upright left knee and his right leg pendant, a fillet centered with a seated Buddha rising in the front of the massive chignon at the top of his head, a narrow scarf and beaded necklace draped on his elongated torso and further strings of jewels falling across the skirt covering both legs, the surfaces showing traces of colored pigments on a white gesso ground.34in (86.5cm) high
|The seated posture and the strings of jewelry hanging from the neck and waist of this bodhisattva are facets of the water-moon form of Guanyin that first appeared in sculpture of the Song period. See, for example, the massive gilt and polychromed wood Water-Moon Guanyin from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, pictured and discussed in Angela Howard (et al.), Chinese Sculpture (Yale University and Foreign Language Press, 2006), p. 385, fig.4.27 and p. 388.